Know Your Designer

BDAV President, Lindsay Douglas, shares some insights about himself

In this new monthly feature, we interview some of our members to enable readers to ‘Know Your Designer’. So who better to launch this feature than an interview with Lindsay Douglas, BDAV’s current President.

Lindsay runs Dig Design, a business he has been running since 2002 with his wife and business-partner, Julie-Anne Smith.

Q: What architectural style of home did you grow up in?
A: 1970s suburban brick home.

Q: What style of architecture do you most like?
A: It’s not fashionable, but I like brutalist architecture.

Q: What is your favourite finish?
A: Fenix Nanotech Material

Q: What is your favourite Australian building?
A: The National Gallery of Victoria, by noted Australian architect, Sir Roy Grounds. In 1959, the commission to design a new gallery and cultural centre was awarded to the architectural firm Grounds Romberg Boyd. In 1962, Roy Grounds split from his partners Frederick Romberg and Robin Boyd, but retained the commission. It is his best known work.

Q: What is your favourite International building?
A: The Elrod House, by John Lautner, a residence in Palm Springs, California, designed by American architect John Lautner and constructed in 1968, at the request of the interior designer, Arthur Elrod. It is located on the edge of a hill and is one of Lautner’s most famous structures.

Q: What has been your biggest business/design challenge to date?
A: We have just started a project that is a home for four couples to retire to; defining the brief is a challenge; I am enjoying working toward the design solution.

Q: What are you passionate about?
A: Good design and the built environment.

Q: As child, what did you want to be?
A: Full-forward for the Richmond Tigers!

Q: Sum up your life, in four words.
A: Design. Family. Golf. Repeat.

Q: What are you reading at the moment?
A: Ghost Empire, by Richard Fidler, a history of Constantinople up to the conquest by the Ottoman Empire interspaced with the experiences of Fidler and his son who took a trip to Istanbul in 2014.

Q: What are your ‘words of wisdom’ for a student building designer?
A: Be adventurous and grasp opportunities as they arise.

Q: What motivated you to join the BDAV?
A: The BDAV as an organisation provides great practical and technical advice relating to both the practice of building design and the business of building design